joseph beuys (the rescued article)

This was my first article ever published on Mammoth. I remember writing it during my 7th period Debate class in sophomore year. On accident, I deleted the article from the website, and could not find a backup copy saved (I have since then, begun duplicating each article in a .docx file). However, by some fortunate luck, I found a place on the server where I edit Mammoth that had saved the original copy of this (admittedly incomplete) text. Lines in red are not from the original article, but have been added to be comprehensive.

The world-renowned – yet often forgotten – Father of Fluxus! Joseph Beuys will forever hold a place in my heart as one of my absolute favorite artists. I first heard of Beuys amidst the pandemic (of which virus shall not be named) while scouring through a website dedicated to the impacts of Dada, a site that no longer exists. I was brought to that site likely through research on 9/11’s suicide jumpers (thanks Joe Hawley) and somehow ended up discovering one of the greatest artists to bless the face of the earth.

Born on May 12, 1921 (his100th celebrated internationally earlier this year) to a devout Catholic couple in Krefeld, Germany, Beuys experienced firsthand the rise and terror of the Nazi Party. In 1941 Joseph Beuys joined the German air force, and after having his plane shot down in Ukraine, was rescued by a tribe of Tartars, who wrapped his body in fat and felt (keep this in mind for later).

After his time fighting for the wrong side of the war (oops), and graduating from the typical art-school cycle, Beuys began with watercolors and printmaking. Only later did Beuys begin to represent his work through historical motifs of his life. Fat, felt, gold, stone, among others. Beuys also began dabbling in performance art during the beginnings of the Fluxus movement and hosted events where he'd perform ritualistic pieces about the state of the world.

Works by Joseph Beuys were never bereft of political message, with Beuys coining the term "Social Sculpture" on art with the capacity to transform society. Beuys was one of the founders of both the German Green Party - the leading environmentally-focused political party in Germany, as well as the Free International University for Creativity and Interdisciplinary Research - a support and research group for artists across the world.

Despite a 1986 death from heart failure, Joseph Beuys' voice lives on. Siehe unten:

This is Friedenshase, though not one of the original Beuys works which I discovered when I first became a fan, it is possibly one of my favorite. Beuys took a gold model of Ivan the Terrible, removed it gems, and melted the gold into a mold of a bunny. This rabbit motif - which is common throughout Beuys' oeuvre, represents peace and innocence. The process itself, of melting repurposed gold, holds alchemical importance which represents rebirth and reconciliation. Building off the legacy of Russian violence, Beuys depict a magical and tangible approach to reforming world peace.

Part of one of many Joseph Beuys shows that blend religion with technology. This photo has been part of MammothAD's home page for years.

Beuy's largest scale project is likely that of 7000 Oaks. In which he planted a start set of 7-thousand oak trees across Germany. Each tree would be accompanied with a columnar basalt pillar driven into the ground. The contrast of a soft-growing oak and an extrusive igneous rock set in size, both of strong core and composition, create a reference point for the growth of the tree. A symbol of renewal and growth across the world. By the unchanging nature of the basalt pillar, Beuys is able to comment on the proportion between man and nature, and the interaction of man in the world of its own creation.

In this piece, Beuys carried over the motif of basalt pillars from his other works, and layed out an array of them to elicit imagery of ruined infrastructure in the viewer. The pieces each have a cylinder removed from the top, the hole was then filled with clay and felt, and the cylinder was smoothed into a cone and reinserted. An interesting part of this piece is that there were no instructions for display left behind, meaning that each now iteration of the installation takes on a new life based on its location.

What many would consider to be Beuys' most famous work, I Like America and America Likes Me was a 3-day long living installation in which Beuys lived with a Coyote in a confined, openly-displayed space. A feat which took international cooperation to plan. During the run of I Like America, Beuys resided in a small room filled with felt and hay. Beuys' act of social sculpture had him serve in the role of both the human and thus the antagonist, and the weaker species to the carnivorous animal, making him the victim. The coyote used copies of popular magazines and newspapers - notably TIME - to relieve himself (quite the comedian).

I Like America is viewed as one of the most significant works of art of the Vietnam War era, and as Beuys explains, the piece symbolizes the opportunity and responsibility of mankind, especially the United States, to rebuild its bond with nature, and make penance for its crimes. During his visit to the US, Beuys produced a photograph of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, which he renamed as Cosmas and Damian. Two saints who are venerated as being patrons of healing and union. Beuys wished the globalization of the US to be its catalyst for peace, but as we all know, the events of 2001 proved the tower to be a symbol of the exact opposite.

See also: Oleg Kulik's I Bite America and America Bites Me.

Beuys' November '65 piece How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare was my Halloween costume in 2020, which required me to cover my head in gold-leaf (which was substituted with gold paper I found at Walmart) and carry a dead hare around all night, the role of which was played by my (very alive) cat.

I really like this photo. You can also find it on the Gallery page. I think there's something very freeing about looking at it.

​Thank you for reading.